» 


THE INTELLECTUAL AND 
THE LABOR MOVEMENT 




i 


I 

by 

GEORGE SOULE 



70 Fifth Ave., New York 









































LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 

70 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 


Object : 

“EDUCATION FOR A NEW SOCIAL ORDER BASED 

ON PRODUCTION FOR USE AND NOT FOR PROFIT " 

• 

The League invites those in sympathy 
with its object to join its ranks. It 
has chapters in colleges and in cities. 

Write for information to the directors. 


Officers : 
(1922-1923) 

President , Robert Morss Lovett 




Vice-Presidents, 
Charles P. Steinmetz 
Evans Clark 
Florence Kelley 
Arthur Gleason 


Treasurer , Stuart Chase 
Directors, 

Harry W. Laidler 
Norman Thomas 





PUBLICATIONS OF THE LEAGUE 


These include a News-Bulletin issued periodically and vari¬ 
ous leaflets and pamphlets, including Dr. Laidler’s Recent 
Developments in Socialism (five cents per copy). This pam¬ 
phlet, The Intellectual and the Labor Movement, is Number 
3 in a series which includes: 


Irrepressible America. By Scott Nearing. 1922. 

An analysis of the social thinking of average Ameri¬ 
cans and of the need for educational work. 

The Challenge of Waste. By Stuart Chase. 1922. 

An incisive study of the wastes inherent in produc¬ 
tion for private profit. 

The World Trend Toward Public Ownership. By Harry 
W. Laidler. 1923. 

A study of modern forms of, or approaches to, social¬ 
ization of industry. 

The Challenge of War. By Norman Thomas. 1923. 

A study of the economic tap root of war in the soil 
of competitive nationalism. 

The above pamphlets sell at 10 cents apiece, 15 for $1.00. 
Special rates for larger orders. 





THE INTELLECTUAL AND 
THE LABOR MOVEMENT 


By GEORGE SOULE 

Director, Labor Bureau, Inc. 


* 8 ? 


Copyright, 1923, by 

LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 

70 Fifth Ave., New York 


No. 3 


SPECIAL RATES FOR BUNDLE ORDERS 


1923 




INTRODUCTION 

It is now many years ago that Prince Peter Kropotkin wrote 
his famous appeal to young “intellectuals” to cast in their lot 
with the labor movement—to the poets, the painters, the 
sculptors, the musicians, who understood that their “true mis¬ 
sion and the very interests of art itself” were with labor; to 
the physicians, who had become convinced that the causes of 
disease must be uprooted; to the lovers of pure science, to all 
“who possessed knowledge, talent, capacity, industry.” 

“And remember,” declared Kropotkin, “if you do come, that 
you come not as masters but as comrades in the struggle; that 
you come not to govern but to gain strength for yourselves in 
a new life which sweeps upwards to the conquest of the future; 
that you come less to teach than to grasp the aspirations of 
the many; to divine them, to give them shape, and then to 
work without rest and without haste, with all the fire of youth 
and all the judgment of age, to realize them in actual life. 
Then and then only will you lead a complete, a noble, a rational 
existence. Then you will see that your every effort on this 
path bears with it fruit in abundance, and this sublime harmony 
once established between your actions and the dictates of your 
conscience will give you powers you never dreamt lay dormant 
in yourselves. 

“The never-ceasing struggle for truth, justice and equality 
among the people, whose gratitude you will earn—what nobler 
career can the youth of all nations desire than this?” 

This and similar appeals made before and since, and, most 
of all, the great, crying need of the times have, during the last 
hundred years, irresistibly aligned men and women of keen 
mind and fine idealism on the side of labor. A host of them 
we find in Europe alone—Ibsen, Shaw, Hauptmann, Maeterlinck, 
Galsworthy, Carpenter, Masefield, among the dramatists and 
poets; Tolstoi, Zola, Hugo, Turgieneff, France, Gorky, Wells, 
Rolland, Barbusse, among the novelists; John Stuart Mill, 
Marx, Engels, Kropotkin, Sorel, Lagardelle, Place, Lenin, the 
Webbs, the Hobsons, Gide, Cole, Kautsky, Hilferding, among 
the economists; Ruskin, Morris, Crane, Millet, Meunier, Wag¬ 
ner, among the artists and musicians; Alfred Russel Wallace, 
Lombroso, Ferri, Labriola, Frederic Harrison, Grant Allen, Ber¬ 
trand Russel, Albert Einstein, among the scientists and philoso¬ 
phers; Lassalle, Jaures, Mazzini, Adler, the Liebknechts, Snow¬ 
den, Vandervelde, Trotsky, Macdonald, Branting, Longuet, 
among the orators and the parliamentarians; Robert Owen, St. 
Simon and Fourier, among the Utopian writers; and men and 
women of rare attainments in every line of intellectual endeavor. 

The great majority of these “traders in ideas,” as Barbusse 
has it, have not only had a passionate desire to serve labor in 
its immediate struggles, but to assist the worker in his age long 
battle toward a worthier status—toward a higher order of in¬ 
dustrial society. 

2 

MAY 23 |9#C1A705 454 



t 


In the early days of the labor movement, the intellectual 
was of chief assistance to the workers in interpreting labor to 
itself and to those outside its l’anks; in inspiring the movement 
with confidence in itself; in assisting it to formulate its pro¬ 
gram for social change, to keep its idealism, its enthusiasm 
alive; in widening its vision of future possibilities. 

In Europe today, particularly in countries such as Russia, 
where labor is in control, the prime present day need is for 
technical assistance in the administration of socialized industry. 
The indifference or opposition of many brain workers to the 
government has been a serious handicap to it. In other coun¬ 
tries—Sweden, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, among them 
-—labor has selected many “intellectuals” to voice its demands 
in the parliaments and in municipal councils, and to aid it in 
the cooperative, the educational and other movements. 

In the United States, labor has for some time utilized lawyers 
to defend it in court—lawyers of the type of Clarence Darrow^. 
Jackson H. Ralston, Morris Hillquit, Frank P. Walsh. It has 
gladly accepted the service of such university trained men and 
women as Jane Addams,- Florence Kelley, John B. Andrews, 
Owen R. Lovejoy, Henry R. Seager, John R. Commons, Lillian 
Wald, tn its fight for better labor legislation. It has received 
aid—material and spiritual—from writers and speakers of the 
type of-Walt Whitman, James Russell Lowell, Horace Greeley, 
Margaret Fuller, Wendell Phillips, Albert Brisbane, William 
Henry Channing, John Swinton, Edward Bellamy, and Henry D. 
Lloyd, at an earlier period; and, more recently, of Jack London,^ 
William D. Howells, Frank Norris, Edwin Markham, Charles 
Rann Kennedy, Mary Austin, Upton Sinclair, Vida D. Scudder, 
Sinclair Lewis, Louis Untermeyer, Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sand¬ 
burg, Ernest Poole, Frederic C. Howe, Arthur Gleason, Lincoln 
Steffens, among writers, poets and dramatists; William James, 
John Dewey, Charles P. Steinmetz, among the philosophers and 
scientists; Lester F. Ward, Robert H. Hoxie, Carlton Parker, 
Thorstein Veblen, E. A. Ross, Franklin H. Giddings, Charles A. 
Beard, among political scientists; and John A. Ryan, Walter 
Rauschenbusch, Bishops Spaulding and Williams, Harry F. 
Ward, Judah L. Magnes, and John Haynes Holmes, among re¬ 
ligious leaders. 

During the past few years organized labor on the economic 
field has developed a number of constructive features. It has 
entered the field of labor education, labor banking, labor 
health, cooperation, labor politics, and these developments have 
led to an increasing need for university trained technicians. 
In some ways service as expert advisers in these fields of trade 
union activity furnish the most fertile field today for the 
trained student who wishes to devote his energies to the 
strengthening of the labor movement. 

How can the young intellectual be of service in this field? 
In what spirit should he approach the task? What pitfalls 
should he avoid? What should be the attitude of the trade 
union leaders toward the technicians? 

3 


George Soule, of the Labor Bureau, Inc., has attempted to 
answer these questions. After suggesting some answers, he has 
asked for comments from others working in the same field. 
These comments are, in large part, embodied in the text of the 
pamphlet, in footnotes and in the appendix. The pamphlet thus 
becomes, in a real sense, a cooperative venture. 

The pamphlet does not attempt to persuade students of the 
importance of the labor movement in the life of today and to¬ 
morrow. It assumes that importance. It does not attempt to 
cover the whole field of intellectual activity surrounding the 
movement. It is confined largely to the opportunities of the 
technician, in the broader sense of that term, in the present 
day trade union movement. 

The League counts itself as particularly fortunate in se¬ 
curing this contribution from Mr. George Soule and his col¬ 
leagues. A graduate of Yale University, 1908, Mr. Soule has 
been a thorough student of the labor movement for many years 
past. Since 1918, he has served on the staffs of the New Repub¬ 
lic, the Nation and the New York Post as a special writer on 
labor problems, is the author of a report on the industrial ser¬ 
vice section of the Department of the Secretary of War, and 
more lately has devoted his entire time to the Labor Bureau, 
Inc., as one of its directors. He is co-author with J. M. Budish 
of “The New Unionism in the Clothing Industry,” a director of 
the National Bureau of Economic Research and a writer for 
various scientific journals. 

The pamphlet is the third of a series on social problems pub¬ 
lished by the League. It will not have been published in vain 
if it helps any young idealist to find his niche in the labor 
movement and to assist in the onward march of this movement 
toward a nobler civilization. 


HARRY W. LAIDLER. 


THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE 
LABOR MOVEMENT 


By George Soule 


I T IS a pity there is not some other word than intellectual 
with which to describe the type of person about whom 
this pamphlet is written. “Brain-worker” will not do; 
it is an ugly and meaningless term which implies that a 
college graduate has a better mind and employs it more than 
a manual laborer,, although the contrary is often the case. 
“Educated person” is an unwarranted assumption; not many 
really are educated in the true sense. “Technician” would 
be more accurate for some; yet, alas, how few intellectuals 
have technical skill of any sort! 

The word is made necessary by the fact that there are 
some trades, largely consisting of those whose hand-tools are 
not heavier than a pencil or more difficult to operate than a 
typewriter or an adding machine, which are not yet well 
organized in trade-unions. The usual apprenticeship for 
these trades is long and expensive. This is so, however, 
largely through social custom rather than because such a 
long training is necessary to produce the average level of 
ability of the journeyman in question. These trades are 
largely recruited from the children of Mr. Babbitt and his 
friends. They include writers of fiction, of poetry, of crit¬ 
icism, of political and social articles—though not the hum¬ 
drum newspaper man. They include many social workers, 
researchers, and officials and employees of philanthropic 
and liberal societies. They include some professors and 
teachers, And, a much larger class, they include many who 
do not have even so definite a trade as these, but feel vague 
aspirations to be of service some day in one or more of them. 
One trait all these persons have in common. They believe 
that the whole world and its problems are their province; 
they are not satisfied to be intellectually limited to one round 
of duties or to one enterprise, such as a grocery store or a 
family. Exhibited with proper modesty, this trait is a good 
one. 


5 




WHY INTELLECTUALS ARE ATTRACTED TO THE 
LABOR MOVEMENT 

Now a person of this sort is likely to be discontented with 
the human scene as it is, ready of imagination and sympathy, 
experimental, and somewhat contemptuous of the standards 
immediately about him. He feels the need of a vital and re¬ 
freshing force in the world which may upset it more or less, 
which may lead it into regenerative paths. He likes dramatic 
conflicts and great events. Looking abroad, he searches for 
an historic current which seems important enough for him 
to throw himself into. And soon the labor movement, as 
reflected in strikes, in manifestoes and prophecies, fills his 
eye. Here are a multitude of people who also feel discon¬ 
tent, who have a worthy cause, whose onward march is mas¬ 
sive and continued enough to bear a sort of grandeur, es¬ 
pecially in distant perspective which obscures details and 
confuses colors. For him the immensely complex British 
Labor Movement becomes the famous and inspiring Notting¬ 
ham program of the Labor Party. The early speeches of 
Trotsky or Lenin stand for the gargantuan upheaval in Rus¬ 
sia. He is fired with the spirit of words like “comrade” and 
“brother,” and in moments of dramatic imagination pictures 
himself sacrificing his share of this world’s, goods, and per¬ 
haps, if need be, life or liberty as well, in the cause of hu¬ 
manity. 

FINDING THE REALITY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT 

Such an attitude is not only creditable, it is also enjoyable 
and, to a certain extent, useful. Many of the leaders of the 
trade unions themselves have it at times, and it is one with 
which everyone may be touched in a crisis such as a war or a 
strike. But it is not anyone’s habitual attitude; assumed too 
consistently and too long it may become a posture which 
is cramping and even inhuman. At any rate, the intellectual 
who has a romantic picture of the labor movement should 
remember that the rank and file of those who compose it 
approach it from a different ground and with a somewhat 
different purpose. To a manual wage-earner the movement 
may be a spectacle, a drama, but it is also something more 
immediate and intimate. It is likely to be presently em¬ 
bodied in a trade-union. This union may have won his al¬ 
legiance on the plea of high aims and brotherly principles, 

6 


but it may also have kept his membership because it has 
proved itself capable of raising his wages twenty-five cents 
a day or shortening his working week from fifty-two to 
forty-eight hours. He may have joined it just as many 
business men join a prosperous church—because it contains 
most of the prominent workmen of his trade and is able to 
lead him to a job. It may mean to him the sort of vested 
interest represented to many others by an insurance company. 
The officials of the union may be idealists, but they may be 
practical men as well, who think not merely about the ulti¬ 
mate interests of the rank and file who elect them, but also 
about the amount and regularity of their salaries, and hence 
about the conservative type of policy which will insure a 
continual flow of “per capita” into the union treasuries . 1 

To a common or carnal mind such motives and details 
appear proper and reasonable, the essential texture of any 
large fabric, but to a man looking for a marching army of 
sacrifice, which is on its way to create a new heaven and a 
new earth, they often seem so petty as to be nearly criminal. 
The intellectual who actually works with the labor movement 
is a bit inclined to scoff at the unions’ emphasis on more 
wages and hours. He may oppose insurance funds and sim¬ 
ilar projects on the very ground that they are likely to lead 
to conservative policies. He may think every great strike 
is “the” revolution, and may be bitterly disappointed when 
it is compromised on the basis of half the gains which he 
thinks it might have won. He watches the indomitable ex¬ 
pression of resolution in the speeches, followed by a weaken¬ 
ing of the rank and file and the temporary satisfaction with 
small victories. He may discover scattered instances of graft 
and other dishonesty. He sees what looks like ingratitude on 
the part of the crowd, their susceptibility to meaningless fac¬ 
tional struggles, their supineness in the face of intolerable 
outrages, their unwillingness or inability to think, their fail- 

i Miss Fannia M. Cohn, one of the vice-presidents of the International 
Ladies Garment Workers, and secretary of its Educational Department, 
emphasizes this contention of the author’s. 

“Even those members of a union who are idealistically inclined will 
drop out if they do not see results. Although, to my mind, a trade union 
has a great and idealistic mission to perform, it must on the journey towards 
its ultimate aim solve many of the workers’ problems. These though 
seemingly small, are very important for the preservation, solidarity and 
success of the labor movement. Workers will fight the most bitter and 
important strikes with great enthusiasm and sacrifice. But if the strike 
is lost and they have no longer any hope of getting improvements through 
their collective efforts, they drop out of the union.” 

7 



ure to support causes which might help them. And in the 
end he is likely to become as discouraged as in the begin¬ 
ning he was ardorous. Disillusionment and bitterness set in; 
he cannot find a way to be useful, the labor movement is slow 
and tortuous and he will have none of it. At the same time 
he may find himself incapable of making even the sacrifice 
involved in living from year to year on the same income as 
the average skilled wage-earner, to say nothing of losing his 
liberty and life in the Cause . 2 

WHAT LABOR SOMETIMES EXPECTS OF THE 

INTELLECTUAL 

Naive members and officers of the unions sometimes have 
as exaggerated expectations of the intellectual as he has of 
them. Here is an educated man come to help them. He has 
been to college and hence knows everything. He knows what 
is the matter with the world. Give him power and he can 
do away in a jiffy with poverty and oppression. He has 
written for a newspaper, and so he can see that the news¬ 
papers at last print the workers’ side of the case in full. His 
influential friends can bring pressure to bear on the em¬ 
ployer and make him reasonable. They can contribute enor¬ 
mous sums of money for relief funds and benefits. 

No intellectual can do these things, most intellectuals cannot 
do any part of one of them. Here is disillusionment also. 

2 Commenting on the manner in which many intellectuals approach the 
labor movement. Cedric Long, graduate of Union Theological Seminary, a 
former organizer for the Amalgamated Textile Workers says: 

“Many young men and women have thrown themselves directly into 
the labor movement. Some of these have been animated chiefly by the scien¬ 
tific spirit; they have hoboed through the harvest fields and mining dis¬ 
tricts, worked in the ranks of unskilled labor in factory and mill,— trying 
to get the ‘feel’ of life and toil and union activities as the workers at the 
bottom find them. Others more emotionally sensitive to the injustices in 
our industrial order, repelled by the callousness and unconscious cruelty of 
the classes with which they are habitually associated, find themselves driven 
to cut loose and throw in their lot with the oppressed classes in society. 
A third group, mere adventurers, join the labor forces in search of new sen¬ 
sations or personal power. 

“No man or woman should lightly make such a leap as this. Young 
people easily interpret a love of romance as ‘social passion’ or the ‘scientific 
spirit’. The labor movement has nothing to give such people, nor can 
they give anything to the labor movement. However, many genuine lead¬ 
ers in various social and economic movements have first ‘found themselves’ 
by making such a plunge as this. Other men and women will get their 
start in a life of genuine service in the same manner. 

“There are a few ‘No Trespass’ signs that such people must rigidly 
observe. Don’t take another man’s job, either in time of strike or when 
there are more men than jobs on the market; and do not accept wages that 
are below the standard wage for that particular class of work. Don’t 
aspire to leadership in a union. When the toil among the rank and file of 
workers begins to grow monotonous and you feel you are ‘fitted for greater 
spheres of usefulness’, it is time to move on to another job or get back into 
the ranks of the intellectuals. Don’t harbor the conviction that you are of 
great service to the labor movement. You are probably more of a drag than 
a help; you are merely getting the education which an impossible educational 
system denied you.” 


8 



Through long and bitter experience many trade unionists 
have sworn off from “brain-workers.” Three-quarters of 
the people who come from other economic classes to help 
them have their own axes to grind. The other quarter are 
ineffectual fools. They lead the rank and file off on im¬ 
practical wild-goose chases. They spoil union discipline and 
create dissension. Their attitude is intolerably patronizing. 
They find comfortable berths for themselves and then from 
their security preach to the wage-earner with a wife and 
family on the necessity of sacrificing all in warfare against 
the established order. Labor can fight its own battles with¬ 
out these college upstarts. 

When one considers the situation, it is easy to understand 
the rift which often appears between the intellectuals and 
the labor movement. 

Numerous intellectuals who have read this pamphlet com¬ 
plain that the preceding sections underestimate the role of the 
intellectual and his high purpose, and are likely to dampen 
the fine enthusiasm of youth concerning the labor movement, 
which is the most vital and significant current in the modern 
world. One suggests that I should use Barbusse’s definition 
of the intellectual—one who deals in ideas. Another says 
that I should string through the matter a red thread of hope 
and courage. 

It is significant to me that no trade unionist who has read 
the pamphlet expresses such an opinion. The tone of this 
introduction has been deliberately unflattering, since one of 
its objects is to discourage an inflated and surface enthusiasm 
which usually wreaks as much harm as it does good. Unless 
the inner spirit of a man is robust enough to bear such a 
matter-of-fact analysis, his courage and enthusiasm certainly 
will not endure through an experience of the reality. I am 
confident that a deep fire of conviction can and must be cap- / 
able of a straight look at the facts and will b& willing to 
prove itself in the unromantic drudgery necessary to accom¬ 
plishment. There is no discouragement for those who have 
such a spirit in what I have tried to say. 

WHAT THE INTELLECTUAL MAY EXPECT OF THE 
LABOR MOVEMENT 

It is not true that the high mutual expectations of the in¬ 
tellectual and labor are entirely unfounded. The picture 
which the enthusiast forms of the onwafd march of labor 

•v 

9 


is not false, it is only immensely fore-shortened and roman¬ 
ticized. If he will but remember that workmen are people, 
very much like other people, and that their organizations and 
collective habits are institutions, very much like other insti¬ 
tutions, he will save himself much needless chagrin. Most 
people are interested in petty things, most of them prefer 
roundabout alleys and sideshows to straight progress along 
the main highroad. Heroic moods are not stable. The labor 
movement moves, but sometimes more like a glacier than 
like a race-horse, sometimes more like an eddy than like a 
cataract. It is historic, not in the sense of a carefully directed 
pageant, but in the sense of a highly varied and slow migra¬ 
tion. Its institutions are just as liable to encrusted bureau¬ 
cracy, to cautious protection of their vested interests, as are 
other institutions. They have, to be sure, merits of their 
own, but they are not the type of an ideal world. The fact 
that unions are concerned about wages and hours, about po¬ 
litical factions, that they progress haltingly and clumsily, 
does not mean that the high-sounding manifestoes and pro¬ 
grams are nothing but so much political bunkum. It means 
merely that like all words of man, they are too small and 
clipped to encompass more than the general direction and 
the finer spirit of the reality. 

There is one aspect of the labor movement, moreover, which 
is likely to take by surprise the intellectual who is unfamiliar 
with it. He will probably be unprepared for the intricacy 
and difficulty of its daily functions, or for the technical 
skill demanded of its practical leaders. Seen closely, it is 
not chiefly an affair of meetings, strikes and speeches. A 
successful trade union is a complex organization with a highly 
developed government of its own, dealing with the life of in¬ 
dustry in a hundred details. Its officials have an accumulated 
experience in organizing methods, in negotiating with em¬ 
ployers, in the conduct of industrial warfare when that is 
necessary, in the administration of the affairs of large bodies 
of men, which places them on a level of practical intelligence 
at least as high as that of the average business man. The 
officialdom of the labor movement may, like most other offic¬ 
ialdoms, be uryluly conservative. It may for a time follow 
policies which prove mistaken in the long run. It may have 
much to learn about the conduct of its own business. All 
these faults are characteristic of almost any group of execu- 

10 


tives. Yet a person who is unfamilar with the concrete ma¬ 
chinery of trade-unionism, who has not wrestled with its 
problems at close range, and who has not understood the 
heavy responsibilities which rest upon the shoulders of a 
trade-union leader, is as venturesome in attempting to advise 
unionists about matters of policy as a raw college graduate 
would be in criticizing the technical aspects of management 
in a great industrial enterprise. No one who has not received 
a thorough education in the labor movement is fitted to as¬ 
sume any of the functions of technical trade union leader¬ 
ship. Any “intellectual” who attempts to do so is likely to 
meet with a warranted rebuff. If his talent for speaking or 
writing should gain him support in a section of the move¬ 
ment which is not itself experienced and has not developed 
its own leaders, he is likely soon to succumb to disaster, to¬ 
gether with those who have followed him. 

The intellectual, then, may expect of the labor movement 
a real significance in spite of all disappointments, and he 
may also expect of it, as of all significant institutions rooted 
in history, a tough fabric of custom and behavior to which 
the only fruitful approach is one of inquiring respect. 

WHAT THE LABOR MOVEMENT OUGHT TO EXPECT 
OF THE INTELLECTUAL 

The trade union movement may help the sympathetic in¬ 
tellectual to fulfill his true function by abandoning a wholly 
negative attitude toward him. It ought to cease holding exag¬ 
gerated expectation of his ability. It may be compelled to 
discourage his ill considered attempts at interference. But 
it ought also positively to make clear that in certain respects 
the intellectual may be of distinct assistance . 8 

When a unionist wants plumbing or carpentry done, he 
goes to a plumber or carpenter, not to an official of his own 
union. He recognizes that the man who has a trade, whose 
skill is dependent on an apprenticeship in his craft, is the 

a “I believe,” declares Bruno Lasker of The Survey, commenting on this 
passage, “that Mr. Soule’s statement might, with advantage, be much 
more emphatic. The time has passed when the American labor movement 
could hope to make rapid strides on a narrow class basis. Without having 
ever been near any trade union local or a labor meeting, a socialist in¬ 
tellectual can contribute immensely to public education on labor problems 
and issues. He can sow the seeds of dissatisfaction with the present 
anti-social organization or lack of organization of the nation’s economic 
processes and thereby prepare a more Tolerant hearing for the represen¬ 
tatives of labor and their constructive programs. He can set people of 
his natural environment thinking open-mindedly and constructively and, 
in so doing, he perhaps is just as useful to the labor movement as he 
would be in propagating definite doctrines.” 

11 



man to be employed on a job in that trade or craft. To a 
limited extent he follows the same policy with regard to pro¬ 
fessional men. He visits a doctor when he is sick; he does 
not argue that the art of doctoring is the perquisite of a 
manual worker. When unions become involved in litigation, 
they naturally employ lawyers. But only recently has it 
occurred to union officials that when they are faced by dif¬ 
ficult economic or industrial problems — as they are con¬ 
stantly, owing to the very nature of a union’s activity—, 
when they have controversies with employers in arbitration 
proceedings or in the open arena, they might go to an econ¬ 
omist or an engineer for technical counsel or representation. 

The fact that they have not done so before is not the fault 
of the unions, but of the social scientists and technicians. 
Economics in the past has not been so much a science derived 
inductively from observed facts, developing principles on 
which an art of effective action may be based, as it has been 
a body of dogmatic doctrine serving the prejudices of one 
group or another in society. Engineers have usually been 
merely the instruments of employers in getting more work 
for less wages out of their employees. But unions have an 
opportunity to demand a useful science of economics, and a 
socially-minded and serviceable group of engineers. There 
are numerous other professions, the members of which are 
now chiefly employed by corporation and business execu¬ 
tives, but which might be equally useful to labor. There are, 
of course, the newspaper and magazine writers and editors. 
There are the accountants, who can audit union books and 
set union records straight to much better effect than volunteer 
committees. There are the experts in preventive medicine 
and industrial hygiene, the architects, town planners who 
might design cooperative housing developments, the psycho¬ 
logists and the students of social and political science who 
might, if they had explored their own subjects sufficiently, 
give much aid in the development of social and political stra¬ 
tegy. In fact, there is hardly a branch of science or technology 
which might not in the long run be made useful to any move¬ 
ment of such inclusive nature and large aims as the labor 
movement. 

In the fields of trained technical assistance labor ought to 
expect much of the intellectual, and by expecting much it 
will help the sympathetic intellectual to educate himself 

12 


properly to render a genuine professional service. The in¬ 
tellectual can better aid the union by doing his own job well 
for the union than by trying to do the union’s job for it. 

THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE RANK AND FILE 

Here again I must record dissent on the part of a number 
of intellectuals. The best way to understand the labor move¬ 
ment and to help it, they say, is first to become a manual 
worker and to join a union as a member of the rank and file. 

A small number of intellectuals have done this with great 
profit to themselves and have subsequently been able to in¬ 
terpret labor’s attitude with much more sympathy than they 
could otherwise have done. Manual labor is salutary for any¬ 
body, whether he is to work with the labor movement or not; 
and any intellectual worker will derive benefit from an occa¬ 
sional vacation from his desk and typewriter. As a prepara¬ 
tion for professional service this course has much to recom¬ 
mend it . 4 


4 In dealing with possibilities along these lines, Powers Hapgood, a 
Harvard graduate, who has spent the last few years as a miner in Penn¬ 
sylvania and other states, and who more recently has done effective work 
as an organizer for the miners in Somerset County, has the following to say: 

“I believe that the most important way for intellectuals to be of ser¬ 
vice to the labor movement is for them to become part of the group which 
they wish to help, to start life as manual workers, to take part in the affairs 
of their local unions, and to take their chances on being elected or appointed 
to administrative offices in their unions. This way, of course, applies largely 
to men and women who are not many years out of college and who have nor¬ 
mal health and strength. 

“It is true that men and women who have not risen from the ranks are 
in most unions neither eligible to handle nor capable of handling such im¬ 
portant affairs of the unions as the formation of new policies, the making 
of contracts with employers, the managing of strikes, or the extension of 
the jurisdiction of the unions to unorganized fields. This does not mean, 
however, that college graduates are incapable of managing the basic func¬ 
tions of trade unionism if they go through the same training—though of less 
duration—as do all union officials. When once they rise to a position of 

leadership, they can be far more effective in the administration of their 

unions than if they performed professional services alone. Investigations, 
the preparation of briefs and statistics for arbitration cases, publicity and 
other services which intellectuals now render to the labor movement are 
important and necessary. Those trained along these lines can, however, 
function far more effectively as union officials, or at least as members of the 
rank and file of the labor movement, than if they did specific pieces of work 
as outsiders. They would also be more influential than the isolated intel¬ 
lectual in his advocacy of nationalization, consolidating the power of the 
A. F. of L., etc. 

"A few years spent as a manual laborer in a mine, mill or factory is 
in no way wasted. In the first place, the experience of earning a living in 
Industry and the opportunity which life like this gives for the understanding 

of human beings is the best kind of a post-graduate course. In the second 

place, and more important, it is from the rank and file of labor that pro¬ 
gressive union policy most often comes. One or two active members of the 
rank and file of a local union, expressing their opinions at meetings or as 
delegates debating on the floor of district or national conventions, can do 
an immense amount of good, unappreciated it is true, but still worth while. 
And who can be more influential in arousing interest in workers’ education, 
cooperative stores, labor papers, than active men working at their trades? 
The opportunity is there. Any man or woman with normal health can find 
a job after a little searching in mine, mill or factory and can serve the 
labor movement from the inside in many ways. Let him do his job, not 
worrying about ‘leadership’ and he will find plenty of things worth while 


doing.’’ 


13 



I am doubtful, however, whether any but the most excep¬ 
tional individual should aspire to officialdom and leadership 
in the labor movement itself by this route. After all is said 
and done, a man with a totally different background and 
training cannot easily make himself over into a true repre¬ 
sentative of the rank and file by a few years in a shop or 
mine. He is more likely to be the college man posing as the 
labor leader than the authentic spokesman. 

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICE 

In a large sense and in the long run all professions and 
sciences benefit the community as a whole, and whatever 
benefits the community benefits labor, which forms such a 
large part of the community. In this sense there is an almost 
unlimited scope for service in the professions by those who 
are sympathetic with the labor movement. Certainly nobody 
is fitted to undertake important work in any social service 
unless he does understand the labor movement, and unless 
he participates to a high degree in its aspirations. 

Nevertheless, the opportunity for direct professional con¬ 
nection with labor organizations themselves is'not at present 
wide. Trade unions are still, and necessarily, organizations 
which must use collective economic power or the threat of it 
frequently in order to protect their elementary rights and in¬ 
terests, since they are not yet recognized as essential parts 
of the body politic either by public officials in general or by 
certain large groups of bankers and employers. The funds 
of some labor organizations are ample, but the number of 
strong unions is small indeed compared with the number 
of successful business firms. Technicians and professional 
men have not yet gone far in adapting their knowledge to the 
use of unions under these conditions. Promising beginnings 
have been made, and both sides are rapidly learning how to 
make such contacts fruitful, but the total number of labor 
technicians is still small, and a comparatively few persons 
can do not the work which should be done, but the work 
which it is now practicable to undertake. These persons must 
be peculiarly suited to their calling in order to be happy and 
successful in it. While there are intensely interesting and 
useful positions open for such exceptional individuals, the 
great majority of those interested in the labor movement will 
have to be content with some secondary connection. Among 
the present professional opportunities to cooperate with the 

14 


labor movement, including those which demand merely part- 
time work, may be listed the following: 

Economic and engineering research and counsel . 8 

Publicity and editorial work. 

Accountancy. 

Labor law and bill drafting. 

Labor banking. 

u/Work in the cooperative movement. 

Teaching in labor classes and schools . 8 

Labor health work. 

Work like economic research, law and accountancy can 
only be done through professional connection with unions; 
some of the other occupations, such as teaching or lecturing 
may be done through extra-official agencies for labor educa¬ 
tion which have sprung up in various important centers . 7 

In any such work, the intellectual will do well to adhere to 
certain practical maxims of action. He must, of course, have 
a broad understanding of the movement and a large amount 
of sympathy with its aims. But he should not for a mo¬ 
ment make the mistake of assuming, as a professional man, 
any of the duties or responsibilities of labor leadership . 8 The 

6 “The technique of administration has been worked out to a high 
degree by some of our corporations and in the British civil service, for 
example. I am deeply impressed not only by the need of union officials 
acquiring some of this technique, but also by the possibility of expert service 
being x'endered them along this line. Some day the Labor Bureau will have 
such technicians as well as accountants on its staff.”—A. J. Muste. 

6 Referring to the spirit with which the intellectual should enter the 
field of workers’ education, Dr. H. W. L. Dana, one of the founders of the 
Boston Trade Union College, writes: 

“The college graduate who wants to enter that field 1 must go not in the 
spirit of a ‘condescending saviour’, but of one who puts himself at the service 
of the movement saying ‘Here am I, use me’. He must not expect to direct 
the policies of the labor college where he is teaching. The officers and the 
majority of the board of control, I feel, should be appointed by the trade 
unions, though teachers should be represented on the board and the edu¬ 
cational suggestions which they have to make should carry weight through 
their power to convince the other members of the board.” 

7 For a fuller description of these opportunities, see Appendix. 

Bruno Lasker states that “Perhaps one of the most valuable gifts the 
young intellectual might bring to the labor movement is friendship between 
individuals, fellowship among students and workers in which neither assumes 
a patronizing or a particularly self-abasing attitude.’’ 

8 James H. Maurer, President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, 
thus reinforces the author’s point of view: “The intellectuals are not only 
welcome but needed. There are many things that they are better equipped 
to do than even the great majority of labor officials. Educators for our 
labor schools, research work, newspaper work, cooperative work, labor bank¬ 
ing, credit unions, law, accounting, etc. When once they find their proper 
niche, the labor movement is bound 1 to go forward not only more swiftly, 
but stronger and smoother. In the past, the great handicap of many has 
been that, because of their special training as college men and women, they 
aspired to leadership, instead of taking their places with the rank and file and 
leaving their worth to the movement to determine their rank.” 

Mr. Lasker feels that the warning against the assumption of political 
leadership by the intellectual requires a slight modificaion. “Often the lo- 

15 



political functions belong with the elected officials. They are 
the ones to assume responsibility for policies, they are the 
ones to take action.® The technician’s business is to arrange 
and interpret facts, to give advice, to practice his own pro¬ 
fession. He can, in doing so, accept as much, but no more 
responsibility than a professional man would accept in work¬ 
ing for a corporation. So far as his science is concerned, his 
duty is complete scientific detachment. 

Another desirable aspect of the relationship between labor 
and the technician is that the latter should be adequately paid 
for his services. There is nothing labor dislikes more than 
philanthropy. There is nobody whom the union official 
despises more in his heart than the “parlor socialist” who is 
so anxious to help that he will do so for nothing, and whose 
help is so valueless that it is not worth paying for. Fair pro¬ 
fessional fees symbolize a sound relationship between the 
union and the technician—they establish the fact that the 
technician is there to serve, not to patronize, the union, and 
thus have a salutary effect on both parties. This does not 
mean, of course, that unions can or should pay the large sal¬ 
aries and fees that may be earned by professional men from 
private businesses. Technicians who work with the labor 
movement must often do so at a considerable financial sac¬ 
rifice. But it does mean that the technical and professional 
functions of the labor movement can operate in health, and 
can grow as they should, only if labor pays the technicians 
wages commensurate with their skill and training. 

In the beginning the value of technical services has often 
been demonstrated by free service, and due recognition should 

cal leadership of an educated man who perhaps belongs to the trade union 
membership of the city or town as the representative of an insignificant little 
union of intellectuals,” writes Mr. Lasker, “may be very valuable Indeed. 
Thus officers of the teachers’ union or (in England) of the clerks and shop 
assistants or of newspaper employees have assumed, or rather have been 
given through the recognition of their gifts by the organized workers, a lead¬ 
ership to which the importance of their union in itself would not entitle 
them. In other cases, the legal representatives of a union have, rightly, 
become the interpreters of the union’s policies beyound their professional 
duties.” 

0 “I am in hearty agreement with the author about leaving the ‘political’ 
work of the unions to union officials (the determination of policies, etc.),” 
writes Mr. Muste, who, leaving the ministry, became secretary-treasurer of the 
Amalgamated Textile Workers. “My experience and observation lead me to 
think, however, that some intellectuals can find places for themselves as 
union organizers. I know a number who have done good work in this line. 
It is a terrifically hard, straining job. As a rule, one who wants to try 
to make a place for himself or herself in this field should actually work in 
some industrial establishment and serve as a plain member of a union for 
some time.” 


16 



be given to the pioneers who have given their energies in this 
way . 10 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOLUNTEER WORK 

But what is an intellectual to do if he is not one of those 
fortunate individuals who are fitted to serve the labor move¬ 
ment professionally and who find opportunities to do so? 

If he is a teacher, an actor, or a journalist, he may join 
the union of his own trade and work through that; if there 
is no local in his town, he may organize one . 11 This is a 
heroic and thankless enough task for anyone. Doubtless 
there are few of the professions which might not have organ¬ 
izations affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, 
if their rank and file were sufficiently active and intelligent. 
Here is a thoroughfare waiting to be built by volunteers and 
pioneers, through which the intellectuals may join the labor 
movement en masse. The subject, however, is such a large 
one that it cannot be adequately discussed outside a special 
pamphlet. 

In politics, too, there is ample room for unpaid activity. 
Even the established and business-like Republican and Dem- 

10 Robert W. Bru&re of the Bureau of Industrial Research, while agree¬ 
ing fundamentally and in the “long run” with the author’s contention that 
the healthy relationship between the trade unions and the technicians is 
that the latter should be adequately paid, seems to give a somewhat larger 
place than does Mr. Soule to the pioneers in various lines who have contri¬ 
buted their services to labor without charge. He says: 

“The growing interest and faith in the technicians among the workers, 
as among the rank and file of the common people, is, to a considerable extent, 
due to the social workers,—including doctors, nurses, housing experts, etc.,— 
who were able, during the pioneer period, to serve without pay. The unpaid 
services of technicians in public departments—teachers, factory inspectors, 
compensation experts, doctors, nurses, accountants—as well as the employees 
of privately supported social agencies, etc., come within this category. 

“An intellectual who has no bottom of his own to stand on, even in rela¬ 
tion to the labor movement, except the professional fee, is likely to acquire 
at best the status of the paid attorney rather than that of the competent 
physician, to say nothing of the ‘detached’ scientist. To what extent is the 
present strength of the British Labor Movement, e. g., due to the Fabian’s 
respect for their own independent status in the labor movement? Isn’t exces-, 
sive humility a kind of introverted romanticism?” 

“Whole areas of the necessary work to be done by intellectuals for an<V 
with labor,” writes Heber Blankenhorn, “are nowhere near being recognized 
by labor as worth paying for or by intellectuals as worth doing. Does labor 
pay for all the civil liberties defenders, writers, researchers, etc., whose work 
mainly benefits labor, where that work is at all worth while?” 

11 For a partial list of such unions, see Appendix. 

Mr. Muste deals with the possible value of a public school teacher as 
follows: v 

“Emphasis might be placed on the fact that teachers in the public ele¬ 
mentary and secondary schools should be able, as labor gains in importance 
and recognition to render increasing service, negatively, by not communicat¬ 
ing an anti-labor attitude to growing^children, as is now often done; posi¬ 
tively, by presenting accurately some of the facts about the workers and 
their movement, even though extreme care may need to be taken not to seem 
to create a pro-labor attitude. Moreover, there are bound to come into ex¬ 
istence an increasing number of towns or districts where the industrial 
worker comes to control the school administration, and where teachers who 
comprehend him and his needs, can be of considerable service to his children.” 

17 



ocratic Parties keep large numbers of volunteer workers 
busy. If one is a Socialist or a Farmer-Laborite, or a Non- 
Partisan Leaguer, he may find this work in abundance in 
many sections of the country, and as labor becomes more 
active in politics such opportunities will increase. There is 
great need, in labor politics, for newspaper and publicity 
men, for organizers, for canvassers, for lawyers, speakers, 
and general utility men and women who can be generous 
with their time. Here again, however, the intellectual should 
be careful not to lead away from labor, as embodied either 
in the official or the rank and file. Ultimately, when a better 
common ground, and more understanding and trust have 
been built between the intellectual and the labor movement, 
there is a possibility here for leadership as well. It is note¬ 
worthy that in every country where labor has assumed a sub¬ 
stantial political power, many of the political leaders are pro¬ 
fessional men. Such leaders are found in no one wing of 
the movement. They extend all the way from Lenin in Rus¬ 
sia, through Longuet in France and Ramsay MacDonald in 
England, to such a conservative Socialist as Sidney Webb. 
In politics the intellectual has a peculiar opportunity to co¬ 
operate with the labor movement and even to lead. We in 
America must remember, however, that no number of intel¬ 
lectuals can form a labor political movement or even lead it 
by themselves. Labor itself must first go into politics. 

EDUCATION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL 

Whether one is to work actively for the labor movement, 
or is merely to be connected with it in sympathy and by in¬ 
direct contact, a sound educational basis is indispensable. 
Those still in college who are interested in the matter have 
an enviable opportunity to prepare themselves for assisting 
the new world to come into being, or for understanding the 
process. 

It is, first of all, necessary to understand the method of 
experimental science. One of the greatest tasks of the next 
few generations is to give to the human sciences something 
of the same certainty, something of the same possibility of 
accumulating tested knowledge, that has marked the natural 
sciences since their new start made, let us say, by Francis 
Bacon’s “Novum Organum.” On this account a knowledge 
of the methods of the natural sciences, preferably biology, 

18 


is useful. Geology, economic geography and anthropology 
will add perspective to the scientific outlook. 

History, taught not as a succession of dynasties and dates, 
but as a development of social and economic forces and in¬ 
stitutions, would be of extraordinary help. 12 

Next, a knowledge of psychology, and especially of social 
psychology, is essential to a solution of many of the most 
vexed economic problems. Sound experimental psychology 
is still in its early stages, but a survey of this field should be 
profitable. 

With such a background it will be safe to approach eco¬ 
nomics. Academic economics, as it has been taught in the 
past and is still taught in many colleges, is little but an aggre¬ 
gation of dogmas and unsubstantial hypotheses, based upon 
prejudice, interest, or the experience of a vanished economic 
order. But a background of experimental science and psy¬ 
chology will enable the student to apply the proper criticism 
to this old economic mythology, and to welcome the new 
method of modern economists, who refuse to draw conclu¬ 
sions as to unalterable “economic law” without adequate 
quantitative measurement of phenomena. 

Combined with such correctives, the study of “sociology” 
or the “science of society” is not likely to prove harmful, 
though it is yet in an extremely primitive stage, and should 
not for the most part be accepted as established truth. Taught 
by an able and open-minded man, it will be stimulating. 

Mathematics is essential to. an understanding of anything 
beyond elementary statistics which is an indispensable tool 
in any scientific inquiry. 

Such a basis as the preceding is desirable on which to build 
concrete professional training, whether in engineering, jour¬ 
nalism, accountancy, law, or applied economics, especially if 
the profession is to be practiced in the interests of labor. 
It is not meant to be inclusive, or to underestimate.the value 
of such subjects as literature or philosophy. __ 

The history and present status of the labor rhovement may 
be studied in some colleges, that part of ^t which can be ab- 

12 Dr. Harry Dana believes that another help to the student would be the 
study of literature “taught not as the culture of the leisure classes, but as 
the expression of social ideals. The workers are not merely economic factors 
but also imaginative beings, and the intellectual whcf would help them should 
know the development of the ideas tnat stir them as they have been voiced in 
literature." 


19 



sorbed from books may easily be acquired by reading in or 
out of college. 13 

FINALLY 

In conclusion it may be remembered that from any point 
of view the task of the intellectual—in the sense here de¬ 
fined—is mainly to discover truth and spread its understand¬ 
ing and application to human affairs. There are few prob¬ 
lems more important to the modern community than those 
associated with industry and labor. Whether the intellectual 
has any close contacts with the labor movement or not, the 
opportunity always is before him to understand it as well 
as possible, and to spread that understanding in whatever 
society he happens to move. A scientific and broad approach 
to the struggles of labor, if it can be made to permeate those 
classes of the community who are usually fed with calculated 
misinformation and actuated by heated prejudice in the pres¬ 
ence of strikes and other labor troubles, will do much to make 
possible intelligent progress toward a solution of the gravest 
of modern problems. As an outpost of intelligence, of good 
will, of enlightenment, the intellectual can render an invisible 
but a difficult and highly useful service. It is here, perhaps, 
that the majority of intellectuals with an interest in the labor 
movement will find their true function. 

Those who do have an opportunity to work directly in the 
movement, will find it, in spite of all possible discouragement 
and disillusionment, at least as interesting and satisfactory 
as the usual professional or business career. It does not 
offer so large material rewards to the exceptionally success¬ 
ful, but the average worker is able to make a living in it. He 
will gain besides an immense comfort from the knowledge 
that his work has a significance beyond the next meal and the 
next night’s lodging. 


18 H. S. Raushenbush, Amherst graduate, investigator in anthracite min¬ 
ing district, supplements Mr. Soule’s statement as follows: 

“The author omits what seems to me to be essential. I think the intri¬ 
cate job a labor leader has should lead to the conclusion that the intellectual 
should go through the same process, i.e., work in the industry for a year or 
two—preferably immediately after college—not only to get the common touch 
and to strengthen his decision about staying in that kind of work, but mainly 
to give him self-assurance and the necessary technical knowledge.” 

20 



COMMENT AND SUGGESTIONS 


BROADER ASPECTS 
Morris Hillquit 

Mr. Soule’s pamphlet is confined primarily to the value of 
the technician in the practical work of the trade unions. 
Historically, the role of the intellectual or “theoretician” (as 
distinct from the technician) has always been to express the 
general social ideas of the labor movement, to formulate its 
political program and to discover and emphasize the common 
and ultimate interests of the entire working class in the every¬ 
day struggles of its separate detachments. It is, in fact, the 
recognition that the class struggle of the workers inevitably 
leads to a higher social order that furnishes common ground 
for the intellectual idealists and practical trade unionists in 
the political and economic struggles of organized labor. 

ETHICS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT 
A. J. Muste 

(Brookwood Labor College) 

Dealing with the possible ethical contribution to the radical 
movement, A. J. Muste, writes: “I believe that the labor 
movement is fundamentally the idealistic movement of our 
time; in some connection or other with it is the most tolerable 
place for the idealist to work. Undoubtedly, intellectuals with 
high ethical ideals can make a contribution to the solution of 
the ethical problems involved in labor union activities, provided 
that they never preach ethical ideals to labor unionists and 
almost never speak of them, and provided that their ethical con¬ 
victions are not petrified dogmas mechanically applied to living 
situations, but hypotheses fearlessly lived by so long as no 
better are in sight, but constantly tested by being made to 
meet (not evade) situations and thus enriched and corrected. 
On the other hand, we need a new statement of ethics in gen¬ 
eral. The philosopher, who is going to do it, will have to get 
much of his material from the labor movement and will in 
turn render a profound service to it.” 

LABOR BANKING AND POLITICS 
Frederic C. Howe 

(Secretary, Conference for Progressive Political Action) 

There is a large field for the intellectual, so called, in the 
labor movement in the new economic activities being taken on 
by the international organizations. During the past two years at 
least thirteen banks have been organized by labor groups, 
mostly from the railway unions. The Brotherhood of Loco- 

21 





motive Engineers’ Cooperative National Bank of Cleveland has 
grown to nearly $20,000,000 in resources in two years’ time. 
Other banks have also shown a remarkable growth. The co¬ 
operative movement is making headway among the railway 
workers and miners. So also is group buying. The last elec¬ 
tion showed the possibilities of a labor political movement in 
this country. In the central and western states the forces of 
organized labor were mobilized as they never had been before. 
They worked intelligently and with a generous spirit of cooper¬ 
ation. The labor vote should be mobilized in our cities’ elec¬ 
tions. That is probably where labor will begin its real political 
salvation. From that it will move on. 

Editor’s Note: Labor banking in this country has been one 
of the most interesting and significant of the recent develop¬ 
ments in the labor movement. In November, 1920, the Broth¬ 
erhood of Locomotive Engineers opened a bank in Cleveland 
with a capital stock of $1,000,000, all of the stock being sub¬ 
scribed by members of the union. In the previous May, 
the International Association of Machinists opened the Mount 
Vernon Savings Bank in Washington, D. C., although this bank 
is in part owned by outsiders. The Amalgamated Clothing 
Workers of America followed suit in May, 1922, forming the 
Amalgamated Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago,—a 100 per 
cent labor bank. Labor banks have also been established in 
Philadelphia and in other parts of the country. The Locomotive 
Engineers have purchased a considerable block in the Empire 
Trust Company of New York, and this organization, the Amal¬ 
gamated Clothing Workers, the International Ladies’ Garment 
Workers’ and the Central Trades and Labor Council of New 
York are all going into banking in the Metropolis. There is 
here, therefore, a growing field for the technical trained banker 
with labor sympathies. 

Labor has not as yet developed in this country a strong in¬ 
dependent political movement as in European countries. In 
Great Britain intellectuals of the type of Sydney and Beatrice 
Webb, J. Ramsay Macdonald, Philip Snowden, H. N. Brailsford, 
et al., have given their energies and talents to labor on the 
political field. Thus far labor has sought to elect to office in 
this country men more or less friendly to labor in the older po¬ 
litical parties. The Conference for Progressive Political Ac¬ 
tion, formed in February, 1922, as a result of a call of the 
machinists, railroad brotherhoods, etc., may later develop a 
powerful national Labor Party. In the meanwhile, the Socialist 
Party, the Nonpartisan League, the Farmer-Labor Party and 
the Workers’ Party are functioning as parties of labor and the 
farmer. In some states these groups have combined into a 
local Labor Party. They have elected numerous congressmen, 
senators, state legislators and municipal councillors. 

22 


Intellectuals function in a labor political movement as speak¬ 
ers, secretaries, organizers, writers, research workers, “lobby¬ 
ists,” legislators, administrators, etc. 

The principal labor political groups in the United States 
include: 

Conference for Progressive Political Action, Machinist Build¬ 
ing, Washington, D. C. 

Farmer-Labor Party, 166 W. Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. 

National Non-Partisan League, St. Paul, Minn. 

Non-Partisan Political Campaign Committee, A. F. of L., 
A. F. of L. Building, Washington, D. C. 

Socialist Party, 2418 W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill. 

Workers’ Party, 799 Broadway, New York City. 

A CHANCE TO JOIN THE UNION MOVEMENT 
Henry R. Linville 

(President, The Teachers Union, New York City.) 

Teaching is a job worth while socially, and most per¬ 
sons like to teach somewhere and under certain conditions. 
There are unions of teachers, and they are in the thick 
of the union movement. They are the real thing. Teachers’ 
unions everywhere in this country are well received by trade 
union men and women, and give substantial aid in the struggle 
for the common good. In one sense, organized teachers as a 
group should be natural leaders in the union movement. They 
join a teachers’ union because they realize the force of the 
argument that each social group must organize in a funda¬ 
mental social movement to improve its own working condi¬ 
tions. Moreover, teaching itself is social work. Good teaching 
helps everybody. 

Many teachers’ union members work as teachers in workers' 
education movements. In the cities of New York, Boston, 
Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Paul, Portland, Oregon, and 
San Francisco, the workers are being taught in part by mem¬ 
bers of teachers’ unions. The workers prefer to have union 
teachers. 

There may be just one reason why potentially good teachers 
would hold off from going into teaching as a business. And 
that reason is connected with the existence of bad conditions. 
Private schools are often controlled by ultra-conservative finan¬ 
cial, social or ecclesiastical interests. Public schools—in which 
the demand for teachers is greatest—are run largely by poli¬ 
ticians. They are conducted without social idealism of a high 
type, too often by a lot of persons in the administration and 
among the teachers who regard teaching as a tough job rather 
than as a social opportunity. Nevertheless, there is the opening 
for intelligent persons of social vision. The break must come 
some time. We want big, live and enlightened men and women 
in the school systems to help in educational reconstruction 
which is sure to come. When such persons begin to come in, 
society and the teachers themselves will take a big jump ahead. 

23 


WORKERS’ EDUCATION 
Arthur Gleason 

Workers’ education is not a course on things in general. It 
presupposes that labor is gaining power rather rapidly, that 
something like a crisis will be reached within two generations. 
It is the humanly imperfect effort to meet that situation of re¬ 
sponsibility. . . . 

With the alliance of labor and scholarship in workers’ edu¬ 
cation will come a new unionism, an intelligent journalism, a 
group of interesting teachers. No big rewards and no news¬ 
paper fame await the pioneers of this emancipation. Neither 
teachers nor students will profit by one penny through their 
devotion. Workers’ education does not say “come and be com¬ 
fortable.” It cannot be dressed in the garments of success. It 
demands the impossible. It calls for hard and clear thinking, 
for lonely work, for slow results and unregarded growth. The 
faithful servant of this calling may read “his victory in his 
children’s eyes,” but he will not live to see the day of its advent. 
He is building for a long future. 

—Excerpts from article in The New Republic. 


Editor’s Note: Workers’ education, conducted under dis¬ 
tinct trade union auspices, began in this country with the 
establishment of an educational department of the International 
Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union in 1916. Prior to this date, 
however, we find a number of institutions such as the Rand 
School for Social Science (organized in 1906), and the Na¬ 
tional Women’s Trade Union League, engaged in the task of 
workers’ education. By 1923, the number of trade union col¬ 
leges and labor schools had grown to about fifty. Such inter¬ 
national organizations as the International Ladies’ Garment 
Workers’ Union (3 West 16th Street, New York City), and the 
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (31 Union Square, 
New York City), have active educational departments, while 
central trades councils in Boston, Philadelphia and many other 
cities have organized city labor colleges. The Pennsylvania 
Federation of Labor conducts a state wide educational work. 

In the spring of 1921, the Workers’ Education Bureau of 
America was formed to collect and disseminate information 
relative to efforts at education conducted by any part of or¬ 
ganized labor, to coordinate the work throughout the nation 
and encourage the formation of additional enterprises. It pub¬ 
lishes text-books, conducts a loan library department, assists in 
supplying teachers, etc. Its headquarters is 476 West 24th 
Street, N. Y. C., Spencer Miller, Jr., an Amherst graduate, is 
Secretary of the Bureau which is now under A. F. of L. aus¬ 
pices. An interesting development in workers’ education has 
been the organization, in 1921, of a residence labor college, 
Brookwood Labor College, at Katonah, N. Y., with A. J. Muste, 
as chairman of the faculty, and Toscan Bennett as executive 
secretary. 


24 



WANTED FOR PUBLIC SERVICE 
Carl D. Thompson 

The Public Ownership League of America, 127 N. Dearborn 
St., Chicago, Ill., needs a thousand men and women for public 
service. The cities of America, the states and the nation need 
and cry out for men who will train and qualify themselves, 
discipline! and equip themselves for specific tasks in the public 
service. 

Everywhere our cities are struggling with their utility pro¬ 
blems—their street car service, water works, gas plants, electric 
light and power plants. The Public Ownership League is organ¬ 
izing and marshalling the forces that help in these struggles. It 
supplies the facts and information which it has laboriously col¬ 
lected through years of patient research work; it furnishes 
speakers, writers or campaign managers; it supplies engineers 
to build the plant, or valuation experts to see that the city is 
not defrauded in a purchase price; and, where needed, it sup¬ 
plies attorneys to help the city fight its legal battles. In short 
the League endeavors to help a city or community at every step 
of the way in the specific task of securing the public ownership 
and efficient operation of the public utilities. 

And scarcely a day passes that the League does not help some 
city somewhere in securing the public ownership of one or the 
other of its public utilities. Over 750 cities have installed 
municipal electric light and power plants since the League began 
its work and at least 50 of these have been directly assisted by 
the League while scores of others have been helped indirectly. 
And the field grows daily. What the League has been doing 
heretofore in helping the individual city here and there, it 
must now do on a much larger scale. For a new phase of the 
public utility problem has arisen—that of the private mono¬ 
poly in the hydro-electric and superpower field. The private 
corporations are swiftly seizing upon every possible resource 
of water power and coal for the production of electric current, 
capturing and consolidating both private and municipal plants 
and tieing them into vast interconnected superpower systems. 
Thus they will shortly be in complete control of the hydro-electric 
and superpower field in America and controlling the power they 
will control every phase of modern civilization. For electricity 
is the power of the future. For the home, for industry, trans¬ 
portation, mining and for agriculture—electricity from now on 
is the one absolute essential. He who controls the power con¬ 
trols.' all. 

Hence the commanding need for public ownership in this 
larger field. And the Public Ownership League is organizing 
forces, drafting and introducing bills, pressing publicity in a 
dozen states at once. But the need and the task grow daily. 
There is need for engineers, writers, organizers, speakers, utility 
specialists, research workers, attorneys. 

25 


LABOR RESEARCH 

Labor during the past few years has been learning the value 
of facts—facts on wages, on profits, on the cost of living, on 
living standards, on the state of the market, on the efficiency of 
the industry, etc.; facts to serve as a basis for union strategy; 
facts to present to the public in time of strike; facts to bring 
before the impartial arbitrators in the settlement of labor 
controversies. 

To obtain and present these facts in the most effective man¬ 
ner, some international unions, such as the Amalgamated Cloth¬ 
ing Workers, have organized their own research departments. 
Others, as in the case of the railway crafts, have combined with 
allied unions in establishing a joint bureau with headquarters 
in Chicago. A third group has hired economists and statisticians 
of the type of W. Jett Lauck of Washington. Others still are 
employing such statistical bureaus as the Labor Bureau, Inc., 
on a fee basis to do specific jobs. Labor organizations have 
also received a considerable amount of voluntary assistance 
from such organizations as the Bureau of Industrial Research. 

The following addresses of labor research groups may be 
noted: 

Labor Bureau, Inc., 2 West 43rd St., New York City. 

Publicity and Information Service, A. F. of L. Building, 
Washington, D. C. 

W. Jett Lauck, Southern Building, Washington, D. C. 

Research Department, Railway Employees Department, A. F. 
of L., 4750 Broadway, Chicago, Ill. 

Research Department, Industrial Workers’ of the World, 1001 
W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill. 

Research Department, Amalgamated Clothing Workers, Dr. 
Leo Wolman, Director, 31 Union Square, New York City. 

Bureau of Industrial Research, 289 Fourth Ave., New York 
City. 

Research Department, Rand School of Social Science, 7 E. 
15th Street, New York City. 

A number of other labor organizations have research and 
publicity departments more or less developed. 

The Industrial Workers of the World have also taken a keen 
interest of late in industrial research. 


OTHER OPPORTUNITIES 

Frank V. Anderson, librarian, calls attention to the need for 
labor architects and managers for trade union buildings, and 
for labor librarians. Bruno Lasker, in elaborating on the need 
for the last named group, has the following to say: 

“Librarianship is becoming of increasing importance but is 
usually badly done if at all. Each of the larger craft unions 
should, for the use of its officers and members, have a library 
of books, laws, pamphlets, clippings.” 

26 


LABOR’S HEALTH SERVICE 
Harriet Silverman 

The labor movement of the country has recently given in¬ 
creasing attention to the health of its members. A significant 
development in this field has been the organization of the 
Workers’ Health Bureau on July 1, 1921, to serve organized 
labor in the field of Health, formed in the belief that trade 
unions should assume a new function, namely the protection 
of workers’ bodies against the ravages of occupational diseases. 

The Bureau acts as an engineering body, studies health de¬ 
stroying processes in the various sections of a trade, analyzes 
harmful materials, works out a program of health education 
and builds up on this information a health plan suited to the 
needs of the particular group of local unions uniting for the 
work. 

The program is to be carried out in each trade union through 
the establishment of a Health Department, financed and con¬ 
trolled by the union membership. In other words, this is the 
application of the cooperative principle to medical science. 

The Bureau, with headquarters at Broadway and Eleventh 
Street, New York City, is supported by yearly affiliation fees 
from locals joining the Bureau. 

LAWYERS AND LABOR 
Albert De Silver 

A labor union is a business organization, engaged in 
selling the services of its members for the best price it 
can get. In the course of that business from time to time 
it has legal work to be done. Such legal work may be of vari¬ 
ous sorts, such as advising as to employment contracts, appear¬ 
ing at wage arbitrations, contesting the claim so often made 
that the unions are conspiracies either in restraint of trade 
or to serve some other unlawful purpose. Members of labor 
organizations accused of unlawful acts are entitled to legal 
defence. 

The conscientious lawyer in active practice should be ready 
to accept retainers from labor organizations for such work 
and he should be ready to accept them irrespective of what his 
other clients may think of it. He is a technician and he should 
be ready to put his technical skill at the service of the unions 
when called upon. And, moreover, the lawyer who is ready 
and willing to undertake work of that sort should fit himself 
for it by learning something about the present condition of the 
unions and their history and background. Those are sub¬ 
jects which are only just beginning to be taught at a few law 
schools, yet the lawyer who intends to number labor unions 
among his clients must know them if he is to do good work. 

The law of industrial disputes is at the present time in the 
process of rapid growth. It is fast being molded by judicial 
decisions and is becoming a branch of the law more and more 
important to the community as a whole. Its growth along 

27 


more equitable lines can be assisted only by the skillful and 
able presentation of the unions’ side of the controversies which 
constantly arise. That is the job of the lawyer who would be 
of service to the labor movement. 

ENGINEERS AND THE HUMAN MACHINE 
Champlain L. Riley 

The engineer is the man who applies the physical sciences 
to the production of wealth. He has been responsible for 
the development of steel mills, railroads, radio and water 
power. Science is his handmaiden. To him the earth gives up 
her oil and her coal, and the trees their rubber. No profession 
appeals more strongly to the imagination. No. profession is 
nearer, apparently, to the center of modem civilization. 

And yet the engineer finds himself a less and less dominating 
force in industry. He no longer controls his own time, nor de¬ 
termines the direction of his own efforts. Like a blind Samson 
he turns the mill for others, often far less strong than he. 

The engineer has remained too completely an engineer. While 
he has been working with machines and materials, others have 
mastered the human machine in which he is no more than a cog. 

With the rise of the corporation there has evolved the new 
business of “ownership.” The engineer finds his time and his 
opportunities “owned” by others—not human employers with 
whom he can talk—but boards of directors to whose single pur¬ 
pose, the making of profits, all his activities must contribute. 
These new “owners” are wise in their generation and they pay 
him well for his services. 

But he is not blind. He is aware of the increasingly subordi¬ 
nate position to which he is being relegated, and he is begin¬ 
ning to study the human machine with the same analytical mind 
with which he has solved so many mechanical problems. There 
are already some notable examples of engineers who have mas¬ 
tered the operation of the human machine, and it may be that 
out of the minds of men trained to produce rather than to ex¬ 
ploit, a new social consciousness will be born. 

MINISTERS AND LABOR 
Paul Jones 

The average church contains a mixture of economic groups 
in varying proportions, each group thinking economically 
in its own terms. The minister or priest can interpret 
those two groups to each other, stressing the dominant human 
note that is back of labor’s aspirations. Much excellent work 
along that line has been done through newspapers in small 
cities where a minister conducts a column into which he can 
put matter that ordinarily gets into the news columns. 

In choosing a particular congregation to work in the min¬ 
ister can pick one which is preponderantly labor in its make-up 
(for there are such in every denomination) and give himself 
fully to forwarding the spiritual interests of the group. In 

28 


times of strike or industrial cleavage a minister can often 
assist definitely in getting the fundamental facts before the 
public either directly through the press or through the organ¬ 
ization of a committee of broad-minded men and women. 
Ministers have sometimes aided the cause of labor by acting 
as watchers when picketing is going on in order to testify in 
regard to illegal interference. Others have opened their 
churches or other buildings to strikers to whom public halls 
have been barred. The large number of cases where ministers 
have been called in as arbitrators in labor disputes suggests 
another field for those who have won a reputation for fair- 
minded dealing as well as interest in the human problems 
involved. The Labor College movement has had conspicuous 
assistance from ministers in various cities. The Forum move¬ 
ment which has provided platforms from which various angles 
of the labor problem could be discussed before a general public 
has had large backing from ministers, George Lackland esti¬ 
mating that more than fifty per cent of such forums are to 
be found in churches. 

In general, the minister’s best field in connection with labor 
is, from the peculiar nature of his position, primarily that of 
mediation in such forms as have been suggested above rather 
than that of direct participation. But the synthesizing element 
which he can thus supply is one which is especially needed at 
this time. There is a certain risk that the minister may lose 
his job by this course of action, but that risk is less than it 
sometimes seems and there is no job worth while that does 
not involve risk. 

OPPORTUNITIES IN THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT 
Cedric Long 

(Of the Cooperative League of America) 

The cooperative movement is still weak in the United States. 
Therefore at first sight it seems to offer fewer opportunities 
to the intellectual than the labor movement. As a matter of 
fact, however, it may offer more. Many a sincere and capable 
young fellow has sought entrance to the labor movement only 
to find on getting in that his economic interests were not those 
of the manual worker and that he did not naturally belong 
there. There is no such barrier to the consumers’ cooperative 
movement. The intellectual and the laborer, as consumers, 
have identical economic interests; and many an intellectual has 
been amazed to see how readily the cooperative society wel¬ 
comes him even into a position of responsibility. 

Also, because of the variety of commercial enterprises which 
are the legitimate prey of the cooperative society, the demand 
for skilled workers is much more varied than in the organized 
labor movement. Today intellectuals, as cooperators, are active 
in many of the following professions or lines of business and 
the demand for such experts is increasing: Accountancy, pub¬ 
licity, law, research, teaching, organization work, architecture, 

29 


store management and merchandising, bakery management, 
restaurant management, laundry management, banking, insur¬ 
ance, dairying, contracting and building, coal distribution. 

The average intellectual probably does not care to be pro¬ 
fessionally employed by any radical movement; he may desire 
to serve some one of them voluntarily as the opportunity arises. 

Editor’s Note: The Cooperative League of America, 167 
West 12th Street, New York City, Dr. James P. Warbasse, 
President, is the foremost educational body in the country de¬ 
voted to the interest of consumers’ cooperation. 

The All American Cooperative Commission, 806 B. of L. E. 
Building, Cleveland, Ohio, gives considerable attention to pro¬ 
ducers’ as well as consumers’ cooperative enterprises. . 

The American Federation of Labor also has a committee on 
cooperation. 

WANTED: LABOR PAPER EDITORS 
Heber Blankenhorn 

(Formerly City Editor New York Sun, Director Bureau of 
Industrial Research) 

How long would it take to become a labor paper editor? 

To be a good one, about four years. Two to learn the news¬ 
paper job; one to learn the economics of the trade you propose 
to labor in and to serve; one to learn how to work with leaders. 

Four years looks longish to the youth of twenty-one; would it 
be worth while? Don’t judge wholly by the present perspective. 
The day of the labor editor is just commencing. 

Newspapering is a trade. Avoid the set schools of journal¬ 
ism, training for the commercial press. Get job after job as 
reporter or copyreader on six or eight papers and one news 
agency in as many cities, including a metropolitan paper, a 
big small-town paper, and one in a state capital or in Wash¬ 
ington. Learn something about the business office—the ad¬ 
vertising revenue and circulation—and about the printing plant 
of each paper you work on. Study the news agencies. Your 
ambition is to lose your job the minute you have made good 
on it. Good reporters can bum it from desk to desk as success¬ 
fully as good plumbers. 

In these two years you will happen on your quota of labor 
stories to cover. The machinists, the railroaders, the miners, 
the printers, or some one piece of the trade union movement 
gets more and more of your interest. Put on overalls, break 
a bone or two, live lean and fight around inside your fellows’ 
union. Beside observing what they don’t read, you will learn 
what men live for and what little they work for. 

It will take six months to study hard the economics of one 
or two of the great industries, yours among them; for the 
news of your future career is largely a new kind of news. 

With trade union status, you will be leaving the local union 
in the direction of your real job—the labor press—probably 
via the road of publicity man in a strike, or in an organizing 

30 


or defense campaign. You will work with six leaders and dis¬ 
agree with five. You will learn to assert that independence of 
judgment which is the backbone of any sound press; and to 
practice that cooperation which abides by the mistakes of fel¬ 
low workers. 

Thus you find that spot in the movement which needs a labor 
paper or that sheet which might be a paper if it had an editor. 
^ ar ? a hundred such needy places right now. 

This piece reads like a prescription. It is written for one 
hundred men leaving college or wanting to leave newspapers, 
young, of good heart, vertebrae and intestines, but suffering 
dull pains whenever they think of a life-work. The prescrip¬ 
tion mainly assures them of a decent living while taking the 
cure. 

NOTES ON LABOR PAPERS 

The Federated Press, Carl Haessler, manager, 511 N. Pe¬ 
oria St., Chicago, Ill. Supplies more than 100 labor 
papers with a' daily news service. 

There are several hundred labor papers in the country, 
among those of outstanding importance are: 

MONTHLIES 

The Locomotive Engineers' Journal, Albert C. Coyle, act¬ 
ing editor, B. L. E. Building, Cleveland, Ohio. This 
j’ournal has of late developed features of great interest 
to all students of labor problems. Magazine of 
Locomotive Enginemen and Firemen, John McNamee, 
editor, Guardian Building, Cleveland, Ohio. Machinists’ 
Journal, Fred Hewitt, editor, Machinists’ Building, 
Washington, D. C. The American Federationist, Samuel 
Gompers, editor, Washington, D. C. International Mold- 
ers’ Journal, John P. Frey, editor, Box 699, Cincinnati, 
Ohio. The United Mine Workers’ Journal, Indianapolis, 
Ind. International Typographical Journal, Bankers 
Trust Building, Indianapolis, Ind. 

WEEKLIES 

Justice, organ of International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ 
Union, Max D. Danish, editor, 3 W. 16th St., New York 
City. Advance, organ of Amalgamated Clothing Work¬ 
ers, Joseph Schlossberg, editor, 31 Union Square, New 
York City. Industrial Solidarity, I. W. W. organ, 1001 
W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill. The Illinois Miner, Illinois 
Miners’ Building, Springfield, Ill. 

DAILIES 

New York Call, Minneapolis Daily Star, Seattle Union 
Record, Milwaukee Leader, Oklahoma Leader, Jewish 
Daily Forward (Yiddish). 

31 


Among papers not the organ of any particular union, but 
which deal with various phases of the labor problem are: 

Labor Age, Louis Budenz, manager, 16th Street and Sev¬ 
enth Avenue, New York City. This monthly devotes 
each issue to some constructive feature of the labor 
movement in America. 

Labor Herald, William Z. Foster, editor, 118 N. LaSalle 
Street, Chicago, Ill., organ of the Trade Union Educa¬ 
tional League. Devoted to development of a program 
of industrial unionism among American trade unions. 

Liberator, 799 Broadway, New York City. Organ of 
Workers’ Party. 

The National Leader, Box 2072, Minneapolis, Minn. 
Monthly. Organ of National Non-Partisan League. 

The Socialist World, 2418 W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill. 
Organ of the Socialist Party. 

Labor, Edward Keating, editor, Machinist Building, Wash¬ 
ington, D. C. Weekly. Supported by railroad unions. 

New Majority, 166 W. Washington St., Chicago, Ill. 
Weekly. Organ of Farmer-Labor Party. 

The Nation, 20 Vesey St., New York City; New Republic, 
421 W. 21st St., New York City; The Survey, 112 East 
19th St., New York City; The Freeman, 116 W. 13th 
St., New York City; World Tomorrow, 396 Broadway, 
New York City; Arbitrator, 114 E. 31st St., New York 
City; also deal extensively with various phases of labor. 


A FEW “BRAIN WORKERS” UNIONS 

American Federation of Teachers, F. J. Stecker, Secretary, 
166 W. Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. 

The Press Writers’ Union of New York City, Arthur Warner, 
George Soule, Room 932, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

Associated Actors and Artists of America, H. Montford, 
1440 Broadway, New York City. This organization includes 
groups specifically representative of vaudeville actors, opera 
choruses, etc. The Actors’ Equity Association, Frank Gil¬ 
more, Secretary, 115 W. 47th Street, New York City, contains 
most of the prominent English speaking actors. 

National Federation of Federal Employes, E. J. Newmyer, 
1423 New York Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C. 

American Federation of Musicians, W. Kerngood, 239 Halsey 
Street, Newark, N. J. 

Retail Clerks’ International Protective Association, H. J. 
Conway, Lock Drawer 248, Lafayette, Ind. 

32 


ORGANIZATIONS PROMOTING LABOR LEGISLATION 

During the past twenty years, a number of men and women 
outside of the labor movement have done and are continuing 
to do valuable work for labor in promoting protective legisla¬ 
tion for women and children workers; legislation improving the 
health conditions, ameliorating the unemployment problem, etc. 

The associations include: 

American Association for Labor Legislation, Dr. John B. 
Andrews, Secretary, 131 East 23rd Street, New York City. 

National Consumers’ League, Mrs. Florence Kelley, General 
Secretary, 44 E. 23rd St., New York City. 

National Child Labor Association, Owen R. Lovejoy, Secre¬ 
tary, 105 E. 22nd St., New York City. 

Peoples' Legislative Service, Basil Manly, 605 Fendall Bldg., 
Washington, D. C. 

EDUCATIONAL GROUPS 

More purely educational groups which utilize brain workers 
in activities that relate to the labor movement include: 

The League for Industrial Democracy, 70 Fifth Avenue, New 
York City. 

Public Ownership League of America, Carl D. Thompson, 
Secretary, 127 N. Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill. 

RELIGIOUS GROUPS INTERESTED IN LABOR 

Church League for Industrial Democracy, (Episcopal), Rev. 
F. B. Barnett, Wrightstown, Pa. 

Fellowship of Reconciliation, Bishop Paul Jones, Secretary, 
396 Broadway, New York City. 

Fellowship of the Christian Social Order, Kirby Page, Has- 
brouck Heights, N. J. 

National Catholic Welfare Council, 1312 Massachusetts Ave., 
Washington, D. C. The Rev. John A. Ryan, Secretary. 

Research Council, Social Service Commission of the Federal 
Council of Churches of America, F. Ernest Johnson, Director, 
105 E 22nd Street, New York City. 

Social Service Commission of the Methodist Church, Harry 
F. Ward, Secretary, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

The Young Men’s Christian Association (address 347 Madi¬ 
son Avenue, New York City), the Young Women’s Christian 
Association (600 Lexington Avenue, New York City) and 
various other church groups have committees or separate or¬ 
ganizations which give increasing attention to labor problems. 


The American Civil Liberties Union, Roger N. Baldwin and 
Albert De Silver, directors, 100 Fifth Avenue, New York City, 
does an invaluable work through its national office and volunteer 
helpers for the protection of labor’s civil rights. 

33 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0 038 701 973 fl 



















The Academy Frc?* 
■12 Fourth Avenue 
e w York C 11 v 









































